page_title: Xin Fengxia
section_title: Marriage and persecution
hierarchical_section_title: Xin Fengxia / Marriage and persecution
caption_attribution_description: English: Xin Fengxia and husband Wu Zuguang
context_page_description: Xin Fengxia was a Chinese pingju opera performer, known as the "Queen of Pingju". She was also a film actress, writer, and painter. She starred in the highly popular films Liu Qiao'er and Flowers as Matchmakers, both adapted from her operas.
  Xin was married to Wu Zuguang, a prominent playwright and an outspoken critic of government policies. When Wu was denounced as a "rightist" in Mao Zedong's Anti-Rightist Campaign, Xin refused to divorce him and was herself denounced as a result. She was later severely persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, becoming disabled after a beating and was later paralyzed due to a stroke. No longer able to perform, she dedicated the remainder of her life to teaching, writing, and painting. She studied painting with her godfather Qi Baishi, a master of Chinese painting, and studied writing with her husband. She published a two-million-word memoir, which has been translated into English and Urdu.
  Xin Fengxia pioneered her own style of pingju, now called the "Xin" style. It has become one of the most important styles of the opera. In 2014, the China Pingju Institute created the new pingju opera Xin Fengxia to commemorate her life.
context_section_description: In 1951, Lao She introduced Xin Fengxia to the famous playwright Wu Zuguang. Like many intellectuals at the time, Wu held high hopes for the new People's Republic and returned to China from British Hong Kong. Xin, who had acted in one of Wu's plays, admired his talent. They married that year, despite the fact that they were from differing socioeconomic backgrounds; she had no formal education and was nearly illiterate, while he was from a prominent family of scholars. Wu helped her to study reading, writing, and calligraphy. She also studied painting with Qi Baishi, one of the most celebrated masters of Chinese painting, who took her as his goddaughter.
  Wu Zuguang, an outspoken critic of government cultural policies, was denounced in 1957 as a "rightist" in Mao Zedong's Anti-Rightist Campaign, and was sent to the Great Northern Wilderness in Heilongjiang to be "reformed through labour." Xin was pressured to divorce her husband, but refused. Citing a legendary love story from one of her operas, she said "Wang Baochuan waited 18 years for Xue Pinggui, and I will wait 28 years for Wu Zuguang." As a result, she was herself labeled a rightist and went through struggle sessions.
  Wu returned to Beijing after three years of hard labour, but six years later, China fell into the even greater turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966. Xin Fengxia and Wu Zuguang were both denounced at the beginning of the period. She was severely beaten by a junior actor of the China Pingju Institute; her left knee was broken and she never fully recovered from the injury. The couple's friend Lao She drowned himself after being similarly tortured. After her beating Xin served seven years of forced labour. In December 1975, she became paralyzed after suffering a stroke. Wu took care of her for the rest of her life.
caption: Xin Fengxia and Wu Zuguang
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